Old Domain - What to do?

[MountainMedia]

A client recently bought an older domain that is keyword-rich to an aspect of his company. The main website has both e-commerce and call-to-action elements.

Our team is split on whether or not to create a micro-site on that domain focused on that aspect of the work that he does or to simply redirect the old domain to his main website.

I have not had the opportunity to look at the link profile of the recently acquired domain nor do I have any idea of how many times it's changed hands (which would seem to now be a possible indicator of doorway pages).

If any clarification would help, please let me know and I'll do my best to answer.

[BrandonShoupe]

There was a similar question asked a few days ago. Not sure it directly corresponds to your situation but it is worth a read: http://www.seomoz.org/q/purchased-new-site-with-good-serp-ranks-do-i-operate-and-build-links-or-redirect-the-tld

To summarize: there is no easy answer and it requires careful analysis of both websites.

[MountainMedia]

Brandon -

Thank you. I'll take a look at the question that was asked previously. I guess I missed it in my search before I asked this one. Much appreciated.

[BTeubner]

I'd almost certainly first try to use it as a micro-site. Would it be big deal to do a quick overhaul (not sure what your business is)? If you can generate leads from it, why risk a fishy redirect? Either way, could always link from the new domain to your existing and pass some of that link love.

Agree with Brandon too that more info is needed but I can't think of much that would convince me to do otherwise without trying this first.

Good luck

[EricaMcGillivray]

There are a lot of factors to consider what you want to do with it. Personally, I tend to stray away from microsites due to 1) it's a lot of work for a team to build out more than one site & keep it maintained and 2) as far as the linking aspect, Google is getting smarter to tell who owns what domains, who owns the same domains, and how they're linked.